It’s Thursday, and I wake up thinking about buttons. Again.
How many do I actually have? Which color do I have the most of? How many of each size do I have? Of all the buttons I have, which has the largest diameter…and the smallest?
Then I remember what Ben said to me yesterday in the kitchen, and I think, Maybe Ben’s right—maybe I really am a crackpot!
Forty-five minutes later, I feel even more like an oddball, because right before I leave the house to go to the bus stop, I run upstairs to my room, grab a big handful of cranberry-red buttons, and toss them into my backpack. I just feel like I want to have some buttons with me at school today.
Which is definitely strange.
But as I drop into a seat near the back of the bus, I discover that my strange condition is not unique. Because in the row right in front of me, four boys are arguing—about buttons.
“Are you kidding? Metal buttons are always better than plastic—anybody knows that. And if a metal one is off some kind of a uniform? That’s the best—end of discussion!”
“Okay…but what if you had a plastic one shaped like the Millennium Falcon or something? I think that’d be lots better than some old metal button.”
“Well, maybe—but you’re never gonna see that in your whole life!”
Another kid has his phone out. “Hey—look at this!”
They huddle around the screen, and one of them reads aloud: “ ‘Handmade Millennium Falcon Button’? Whoa! I’d trade an army button for that thing, any day!”
“There’s a Chewbacca button, too! And R2-D2…and Darth Vader! That is so cool!”
But the thing that I think is cool? Not one of these guys was anywhere near my lunch table yesterday, and none of them are in Mrs. Casey’s social studies class either!
How come they’re talking about buttons?
I walk myself through it:
Okay, by the end of lunchtime yesterday, let’s say there were twenty-two kids around our table, and probably half of them were boys, and each one walked away thinking about buttons, plus each had seven or eight new buttons in his pocket. And let’s say those eleven guys each mentioned buttons or showed some to three other guys. Then that would be thirty-three more boys—and if each of them mentioned buttons to three or four others, then, just like that, we’re up to more than a hundred guys with a brand-new interest in buttons!
It’s a decent theory, but I need to test it.
“Excuse me….I heard what you guys were saying just now. How come you’re talking about buttons?”
The boy with the phone turns and looks at me.
“Everybody’s talking about them, that’s all.”
“Everybody? But, like, what got you started talking about buttons?”
He stares at me. “I don’t know. Who cares?”
“I care. I’d just like to know.” And I smile at him.
A different boy says, “What, are you the Button Police or something?”
A kid laughs and says, “Look out, it’s the Button Squad!”
Another guy snarls in a deep voice, “All right, you punks—up against the wall, and hand over all your buttons!”
They keep goofing and laughing, and some of the other boys near the back of the bus join in.
So, I guess this has turned into an experiment about guys showing off for each other. Or maybe just showing off for me.
But science keeps marching forward, no matter what.
And I remember something that might be useful.
I reach into the bottom of my book bag, grab some buttons, and face the boys again.
“Hey—Phone Guy!”
The kid looks up from his screen. “What?”
I hold out my hand. “These aren’t metal, but I’ve got some questions, and I’ll give you two of these blood-red buttons for each question you can answer. Deal?”
Now I’ve got the whole group’s attention.
The kid with the phone smiles. “Sure, deal.”
“Okay. So, when did you start thinking about buttons?”
“Yesterday…in the afternoon.”
“How come?”
“This guy, James Kinney? He’s in my art class, and he started sliding some buttons around on our table, making shapes and patterns and stuff, and then all of us started using them like little air-hockey pucks, just messing around. And everybody thought they were cool.”
“Great—that’s all I wanted to know. Thanks.”
And I drop four blood-red buttons into his outstretched hand—a very small price to pay for totally proving a theory!
I stay on high alert during the rest of my ride to school, and also as I walk through the halls after we arrive. And I observe six more conversations about buttons!
When I get to homeroom, I’m a little out of breath. I look for Ellie—she’s over by the windows with Taylor, Brooke, and Diana.
“Hi, guys. You’ll never guess what happened on my bus! I was—”
“Wait!” Ellie says, and then she sticks her arm in front of my eyes. “What do you think?”
She has a bracelet on her wrist—and it’s made of small white buttons.
Brooke says, “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Taylor adds, “And the buttons are all made out of seashells, right?”
Ellie nods. “They’re mother-of-pearl. All I did was string them like little flat beads onto this thin elastic cord. And now I can stretch it on and off, just like a candy charm bracelet. Here….”
Ellie rolls it off, lifts my left hand, and slips it onto my wrist.
I hold out my arm and study the bracelet.
Again, Ellie has surprised me. I can’t remember her ever doing something creative like this.
“It looks great on you! Do you want to keep it until lunch?”
“It’s really pretty, but I think you should wear it,” I say, and hand it to her.
“Okay.”
I can see Ellie’s glad I gave her bracelet back.
Then Taylor says, “Hey—you started to tell us something…about your bus, right?”
“Oh, that? It wasn’t important.”
Which isn’t quite true.
But I’m thinking like a scientist now—at least, I’m trying to.
Because I want to see if kids are behaving in a certain way, and also why. So, should I go around talking about this particular condition that I’m analyzing? No, because that could start changing the results of my own study—which is bad science, especially if I talk about this condition with people who I think already have the condition I’m observing.
And these girls? They absolutely have the condition—they’ve got button fever!
I mean, I’ve got button fever, too. But here’s the thing: I know I’ve got it.
Ellie, Taylor, Brooke, and Diana? They’re like those boys on the bus: They’ve got it, but they don’t really know it.
Not yet.
Once the day begins, I stay close to Ellie whenever we have classes together or when I see her in the halls and at lunch. Each time she shows her bracelet to someone, or each time someone notices it or asks about it, I make a detailed note.
Ellie is never shy about showing off something new or special, and she has a lot of friends. By the time she steps onto her bus Thursday afternoon, I have observed thirty-nine girls and twelve boys in grades four, five, and six who each got an up-close look at Ellie’s bracelet—that’s fifty-one kids!
Of course, there’s no quick way to know what those fifty-one kids thought about Ellie’s bracelet, or whether any of those kids might have told any other kids about it. And I’m sure Ellie showed her bracelet to some additional kids when I wasn’t around.
Even so, I think I’ve got enough data to support a very simple theory: Avery Elementary School is going to see a dramatic increase of button fever.
And it will probably happen soon.